6 ms·

"In the IT world, where there is a talent shortage, ..." Could we please stop perpetuating this myth? If there really was a shortage, companies would fall over

"In the IT world, where there is a talent shortage, ..." Could we please stop perpetuating this myth? If there really was a shortage, companies would fall over each other trying to hire anyone they could, not make it almost impossible to get hired by imposing ridiculous and long interview processes.

tomwinter 10y ago
From Wikipedia "In economics, a shortage or excess demand is a situation in which the demand for a product or service exceeds its supply in a market.". If you look at the market, the pace of growth of wages in programming field exceeds most of other industries. This means that there is a shortage.
- walterclifford 10y ago
  > If you look at the market, the pace of growth of wages in programming field exceeds most of other industries. If you're going to make that claim it would be helpful to cite a source or two. Would also be nice to know how much it "exceeds most of other industries", if the average wage growth is 3% but it's 3.1% for us that's not very meaningful.
yummyfajitas 10y ago
...companies would fall over each other trying to hire anyone they could, not make it almost impossible to get hired by imposing ridiculous and long interview processes. This doesn't follow. Gold is a scarce resource. This doesn't mean that gold purchasers should stop using assays to determine if they are buying gold or pyrite.
- jbverschoor 10y ago
  Scarce, but there's no shortage.
- mrfusion 10y ago
  What if those assays didnt work though?
dreistdreist 10y ago
Lots of people apply for the jobs, but only a small percentage is actually good. Of course some of the interview processes are ridicilous, but after seeing the world from the other side of the table I understand where they are coming from.
jylam 10y ago
"Talent shortage" is not the same as "people shortage". If you ever took part in recruiting, you know that most of the people you end up interviewing are not fit for the particular job you are offering. There's a lot of people in CS/IT, each with varying skills on various technologies.You can't just ask for a "software engineer", that doesn't exist (anymore). The field is growing more and more specialized, so you must impose interview processes, those being ridiculous and long are each recruiter's choice.
- ryandrake 10y ago
  So, basically there is no shortage of talent--companies are just getting pickier and pickier.
  - vinceguidry 10y ago
    My understanding is that companies are getting pickier because the market is getting pickier. Every website has to be secure, has to be responsive, has to have analytics, has to do a million different things. This means adding talent, and there's only so much to go around.
ryandrake 10y ago
Exactly. This is the myth that just won't die. If there really was a talent shortage, wages would be going up and up until supply met demand, and/or companies would become a lot less picky about their hires than they are now. You can't say there is a shortage of something without naming the price you're offering. Otherwise I could say there's a shortage of new Teslas because I can't find a lime green one for $10K.
- jonny_eh 10y ago
  > wages would be going up and up until supply met demand Unless increasing wages don't directly cause supply to increase overnight.
  - ryandrake 10y ago
    But it could cause demand to decrease. Price does not just affect supply. There would super high demand for talented Bay Area SW engineers if the going rate was $50K per year. Not so much demand if the going rate was $500K per year.
    - jonny_eh 10y ago
      That would just move jobs/companies to cheaper areas.
danvasquez29 10y ago
I think there's a shortage of good candidates, and an abundance of bad ones. Companies who have been burned on the bad ones and/or have convinced themselves they only hire "the best" then put those overly-restrictive barriers on new hires. This problem is made worse by the lack of investment in training once hired, as some are discussing in these comments. Companies become even more reliant on the hiring process to produce the perfect candidate, and employed people are encouraged to stagnate their skills which dwindles the talent pool further. Most companies, in my own personal experience, do fall over themselves to hire proven great candidates right now. Update your linkedin with some engineering accomplishments in in-demand fields like devops, cloud infrastructure, or machine learning, or at well known companies and watch the recruiters circle like sharks in heat.
austincheney 10y ago
There is a shortage, but its largely imaginary. It would be more accurate to call it a talent gap. The talented candidates are certainly out there, but there are far more candidates available who are less talented. Increasing the pay rate for talented candidates does not magically convert somebody with fewer skills into somebody with awesome skills.... so therefore there must be a shortage (sarcasm).

tomwinter 10y ago

From Wikipedia "In economics, a shortage or excess demand is a situation in which the demand for a product or service exceeds its supply in a market.". If you look at the market, the pace of growth of wages in programming field exceeds most of other industries. This means that there is a shortage.

walterclifford 10y ago
> If you look at the market, the pace of growth of wages in programming field exceeds most of other industries. If you're going to make that claim it would be helpful to cite a source or two. Would also be nice to know how much it "exceeds most of other industries", if the average wage growth is 3% but it's 3.1% for us that's not very meaningful.

yummyfajitas 10y ago

...companies would fall over each other trying to hire anyone they could, not make it almost impossible to get hired by imposing ridiculous and long interview processes. This doesn't follow. Gold is a scarce resource. This doesn't mean that gold purchasers should stop using assays to determine if they are buying gold or pyrite.

jbverschoor 10y ago
Scarce, but there's no shortage.
mrfusion 10y ago
What if those assays didnt work though?

dreistdreist 10y ago

Lots of people apply for the jobs, but only a small percentage is actually good. Of course some of the interview processes are ridicilous, but after seeing the world from the other side of the table I understand where they are coming from.

jylam 10y ago

"Talent shortage" is not the same as "people shortage". If you ever took part in recruiting, you know that most of the people you end up interviewing are not fit for the particular job you are offering. There's a lot of people in CS/IT, each with varying skills on various technologies.You can't just ask for a "software engineer", that doesn't exist (anymore). The field is growing more and more specialized, so you must impose interview processes, those being ridiculous and long are each recruiter's choice.

ryandrake 10y ago
So, basically there is no shortage of talent--companies are just getting pickier and pickier.
- vinceguidry 10y ago
  My understanding is that companies are getting pickier because the market is getting pickier. Every website has to be secure, has to be responsive, has to have analytics, has to do a million different things. This means adding talent, and there's only so much to go around.

ryandrake 10y ago

Exactly. This is the myth that just won't die. If there really was a talent shortage, wages would be going up and up until supply met demand, and/or companies would become a lot less picky about their hires than they are now. You can't say there is a shortage of something without naming the price you're offering. Otherwise I could say there's a shortage of new Teslas because I can't find a lime green one for $10K.

jonny_eh 10y ago
> wages would be going up and up until supply met demand Unless increasing wages don't directly cause supply to increase overnight.
- ryandrake 10y ago
  But it could cause demand to decrease. Price does not just affect supply. There would super high demand for talented Bay Area SW engineers if the going rate was $50K per year. Not so much demand if the going rate was $500K per year.
  - jonny_eh 10y ago
    That would just move jobs/companies to cheaper areas.

danvasquez29 10y ago

I think there's a shortage of good candidates, and an abundance of bad ones. Companies who have been burned on the bad ones and/or have convinced themselves they only hire "the best" then put those overly-restrictive barriers on new hires. This problem is made worse by the lack of investment in training once hired, as some are discussing in these comments. Companies become even more reliant on the hiring process to produce the perfect candidate, and employed people are encouraged to stagnate their skills which dwindles the talent pool further. Most companies, in my own personal experience, do fall over themselves to hire proven great candidates right now. Update your linkedin with some engineering accomplishments in in-demand fields like devops, cloud infrastructure, or machine learning, or at well known companies and watch the recruiters circle like sharks in heat.

austincheney 10y ago

There is a shortage, but its largely imaginary. It would be more accurate to call it a talent gap. The talented candidates are certainly out there, but there are far more candidates available who are less talented. Increasing the pay rate for talented candidates does not magically convert somebody with fewer skills into somebody with awesome skills.... so therefore there must be a shortage (sarcasm).